While Western Europe still relied on unrealistic biblical depictions of the globe, Muslim geographers were producing maps that far surpassed them in realism and accuracy. Lavishly illustrated with historic maps, instruments and tables of coordinates, this study traces their development from the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century to the Safavid and Ottoman empires in the 17th, and profiles leading Islamic cartographers such as al-Khwarazmi and al-Idrisi.